Who can help you reach an agreement?

If you and your spouse are separating or getting a divorce, you might be able to work together on your own to make a separation agreement. But if you need some help making a separation agreement, you have a few options.

Here are some of the people who can help you and how to find them.

Family justice counsellors

Family justice counsellors offer free mediation services for couples and families and can also:

• tell you about the law and the Provincial (Family) Court process,
• refer to you to other people who can help,
• help you fill out family court forms, and
• help you plan a separation agreement.

They can't help you with property and debt division, except for small amounts.

Family justice counsellors work at Family Justice Centres. You'll find them in many cities in BC, sometimes at the local courthouse.

To speak to a family justice counsellor, call Service BC at:

• 604-660-2421 (Greater Vancouver),
• 250-387-6121 (Victoria), or
• 1-800-663-7867 (elsewhere in BC).

Ask them to put you through to a family justice counsellor near you. The call's free.

See Family Justice Counsellors in Family Justice Centres on the BC government website to find out more.

Mediators

Mediators are trained to help you and your spouse work together to solve your separation issues.

Mediators don't make decisions or tell you what to do. They encourage you and your spouse to listen to each other and help you come up with ideas for sorting out your problems in ways that work for you both..

Some mediators are lawyers, but they can't give you legal advice, just general information about family law. Mediators will help you make decisions that are in your children's best interests.

Mediation meetings can last between two hours and all day. You might have more than one meeting. Sometimes the mediator will meet with you and your spouse separately.

Usually, you share the cost of the mediation, unless you and your spouse agree to a different arrangement.

The mediation agreement

After you and your spouse have reached an agreement, the mediator will do one of the following:

• Write down what you've agreed to in a Minutes of Settlement. Sometimes it's called a Memorandum of Understanding. You or your lawyer can use it when you're writing your separation agreement, which usually has more details about what you've agreed. 
• Create a separation agreement for you. Only mediators who are lawyers can do this.

A Memorandum of Understanding isn't legally binding (that means you can't use it to make the other person do something written in it). It should say this clearly in the document. If you're asked to sign it, check that it says it isn't legally binding.

Before you sign any separation agreement, you and your spouse should each ask your own lawyer to look at it to make sure it's fair and in the best interests of your children. You can't both use the same lawyer, as that would be a conflict of interest. See What is independent legal advice? to find out more about conflicts of interest.

See Making an agreement after you separate to find out about enforcing or changing a mediated agreement.

How do you find a mediator?

You can find mediators in a few places.

For example, family justice counsellors offer this service (see Family justice counsellors, above).

You can also get help from:

• Mediate BC: a list of qualified family mediators and more information about mediation and how it works. Find out about their free monthly online clinics.
• Family Mediation Canada: information about qualified family mediators
• The Lawyer Referral Service (ask for mediation)
• The Virtual Family Mediation Project: free online family mediation and advice services for low and modest income families in Vancouver, Victoria, and Nanaimo.

Or you could search online by using the word "mediator" and the name of the city you live in.

Can you make your spouse go to mediation?

Supreme Court

If you've started a case in Supreme Court, you might be able to make your spouse go to mediation.

To do this, you serve your spouse with a document called a Notice to Mediate. See Making mediation happen in a family law case in Supreme Court and Serve Supreme Court documents to find out more about this.

Provincial Court

In the Victoria and Surrey Provincial Court registries, parents are required to meet with a family justice counsellor for a needs assessment and for a referral to consent dispute resolution, such as mediation. The goal is to try to reach an agreement so they don’t need to go to court.

See Early Resolution registries for more information.

For more information about what mediators do:

• see Mediators on the BC government website, and
• watch a video at Mediate BC

Lawyers

Lawyers do a lot more than help people go to court. For example, family lawyers spend a lot of their time helping people reach agreements.

See Separating or Divorcing Couples on the Canadian Bar Association website for some helpful information.

Collaborative family lawyers

Collaborative family lawyers have been trained to deal with family cases in a certain way.

You and your spouse agree to work together with your collaborative lawyers to find solutions that work for both of you.

An agreement reached through the collaborative family law process is a legal contract. That means you have to do what it says.

The process is different from traditional divorce or separation processes in a few ways. For example:

• You don't go to court. You, your spouse, and your lawyers all sign an agreement to work together to sort out your issues without going to court.
• You communicate openly. You and your spouse agree in writing to open and honest communication. That includes sharing information with one another about anything related to your separation.
• You take a team approach. You'll be able to get help from specially trained lawyers, divorce coaches, child specialists, and financial advisers when you need it. You and the professionals on your team will work together to solve your issues about support, division of property, or parenting.
• You'll have four-way meetings and team meetings. Your lawyers don't do all the talking. Instead, you, your spouse, and your professional team have meetings together. You might also meet with each of the professionals separately or together. The number of meetings you'll have will depend on how many issues you and your spouse have and how difficult they are.

For the collaborative family law process to work, you and your spouse have to be able to talk about your separation issues honestly and respectfully and not treat each other as enemies.

Can anyone use the collaborative family law process?

Collaborative family law might not work for everyone, especially if there have been issues of family violence or child abuse.

It can be expensive, but it's still usually a lot less than going to court.

How do you find a collaborative family lawyer?

To find a collaborative family lawyer, see the following websites:

• BC Collaborative Roster Society (Lower Mainland and Victoria)
• Collaborative Divorce Vancouver (Lower Mainland)
• The Collaborative Association (Lower Mainland)
• Collaborative Family Separation Professionals (Victoria)
• North Shore Collaborative Family Law Group (Vancouver)
• Okanagan Collaborative Family Law Group (Okanagan Valley)
• Collaborative Law Group of Nelson (East and West Kootenays)

The Lawyer Referral Service might also be able to refer you to a lawyer who practises collaboratively.

Pro Bono Collaborative Divorce Project

The BC Collaborative Roster Society offers a free program for people going through separation or divorce who want to hire collaborative family lawyers but can't afford to. See the Pro Bono Collaborative Family Law Project for more information and to apply online.

Other ways to find help

See Making an agreement after you separate and How do you change an agreement? for information on making, enforcing, and changing an agreement.

See Write your own separation agreement for a guide to writing a legally binding separation agreement.